This section allows you to kibbitz the discussions that take place in one-to-one consultations when Birmingham students bring their drafts of written work for consultation with EISU staff.

Each kibbitzer page contains the discussion of a language problem. This problem may be connected with vocabulary, grammar or discourse (how ideas are linked), or it could be from a combination of these areas. The consultant suggests a revision which solves the problem and discusses this revision with the student. In many cases the revision is supported by concordance data, while in others it employs intuition. In all cases the final revision depends on the joint 'negotiation' of meaning by consultant and student.

Use the links on the right to browse the kibbitzer sections, or click here for a full list.

We hope that by kibbitzing the discussion you will also be able to improve your writing in your academic subject. You can search nearly 80 kibbitzer pages for language points by lexis, syntax, discourse, or academic subject.

The kibbitzer pages were created and developed by Tim Johns. Tim retired from EISU in 2001 and these pages are now maintained by EISU staff.

What does kibbitzer mean?

The term kibbitzer or kibitzer (and thus the verb to kibbitz or kibitz) comes from the chess cafes of central Europe at the start of the 20th century. A kibbitzer did not play chess, but watched other people playing, and possibly made comments on their play.

In the following citation from The Guardian it comes to have the general meaning of an interested observer:

This week, at last, all is official. Scientists, journalists and interested kibbitzers gathered at Fermilab on Tuesday to hear the news.

These pages are called Kibbitzers because they allow you to observe the sorts of problems that arise in revision of students' written work. Of course, while a kibbitzer can learn much from kibbitzing a chess game, any comments will annoy the players by breaking their concentration. We, on the other hand, will welcome your comments as you kibbitz the 'revision game' on these pages.